


The Devil's Voyage

by Peapods



Category: Pundit RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:55:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peapods/pseuds/Peapods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two sailors find love, and a lot more, on the <i>U.S.S. Indianapolis.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil's Voyage

"The scuttlebutt is that we're delivering some kind of doomsday weapon," said the burly Lieutenant next to him. Anderson shifted in his chair.

"So, what?"

"So, you weren't on this ship until we got order to go pick it up, so I figure you're involved." Sharp eyes watched him, intelligence fractured like glass in them.

"I'm just a sailor," Anderson defended, but his voice was weak. The other sailor came right up to him and looked him in the eye. Anderson didn't blink but he felt his breathing increase.

"You may be a sailor," the other man took a dramatic pause. "But that ain't _all_ you are."

The other man stormed out of the rec room leaving the rest of the room looking at him curiously. Anderson decided discretion was the better part of valor and returned to barracks.

*******

"Tinian and _then_ Guam," the big sailor said the next day.

"Why are you so intent on this?" Anderson asked, exasperatedly.

"Because it's interesting," the man said with a shrug. He came over and offered Anderson a big hand, visibly rough with calluses. "Lieutenant Keith Olbermann."

"Lieutenant Anderson Cooper," he offered back, taking the hand.

*******

The drop off at Tinian Island was made under Anderson's supervision, but instead of remaining there and continuing on with the parts, he requested a commission on the _Indianapolis_, the ship he'd just debarked. He was allowed the station and he boarded under the scrutiny of Keith.

He wouldn't admit that the discerning sailor was most of the reason why he had asked for this posting.

"So, just another sailor?" Keith asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Now, I am."

*******

"What were we picking up?" Keith asked lowly one night they were on duty. They had departed Guam just a few hours ago. Anderson looked at him for a long time. He looked genuinely concerned. Anderson looked away, almost feeling ashamed.

"Do you..." he trailed off, wondering why he was about to tell this man about something he'd been sworn to secrecy about. But looking in those blue eyes, he couldn't help it. "What do you know about nuclear physics?"

The look Olbermann shot him told him that he hadn't been wrong about the intelligence in those eyes.

"They figured it out," Olbermann said.

"Yes. I was sent as an escort. My father is on the project."

"Does it work?"

"The first test was on the 16th. It worked."

They both thought about those implications.

"Why are you here?" Keith finally asked. Anderson looked at him. "You have a father on this project, you're obviously intelligent enough not to be a sailor."

"Why are you _here_?" Anderson fired back, indicating his place next to Anderson.

"Touche."

*******

The next day they were both off-duty and in a not often seen part of the ship.

"We shouldn't do this," Anderson whispered as they entered.

"You don't want to?"

"I didn't say that," and he didn't say anything else as Keith's hot mouth mashed with his. He moaned and wrapped his hands around Keith's head. Thick, dark hair slid through his hands. They hadn't gotten hair-cuts in a long while. It had to be quick. They had friends, they would be missed.

Keith stripped off their shirts and worked on their buttons while Anderson kept the kiss going. A moment later Keith back them against the wall and Anderson felt his erection press into his stomach. He moaned as his own erection was trapped in the furrow between Keith's groin and hip. But he didn't lower his hands. He'd never done this before. Thought about, God, thousands of times, with both Keith and other boys he'd known before joining the Navy. But being gay in 1945 was a suicidal idea.

Keith didn't seem to need his help though. He yanked his mouth way and hot words were brushing his face.

"I want to fuck you." Anderson was scared. And exhilarated. And maybe a little bit in love.

"Yes, yes, please," Anderson pleaded. Keith pulled a small tub of vaseline from his pants pocket before completely dropping his pants. Anderson followed suit and then looked to Keith for guidance. The other sailor seemed to understand Anderson's inexperience and moved him from the wall to a table. Anderson hoisted himself up and pulled Keith to him.

As they kissed and caressed Keith's fingers snuck between Anderson's legs and he paused. Was he really going to do this? One look into Keith's grey-blue eyes assured him he was. A finger breached him and he huffed out a breath and tried to relax. It hurt, but not nearly as much as he thought.

Keith prepared him slowly, taking more time than they had, to make sure Anderson was completely ready for him. Finally, Anderson indicated he was ready and lay back, pushing his butt to the edge. The feeling of Keith's dick against him made his eyes vibrate, and moments later he was breached.

It was fast, not brutal, but passionate. Anderson was lost as Keith changed angles and he removed a hand from his shoulder to stuff a fist in his mouth as concussive pleasure pounded through him.

When Keith's hand closed around his own aching erection, he lost all thought and came, feeling Keith slam in one last time and holding.

They lay there only a few moments, exchanging kisses and caresses, before returning to uniform and their friends.

*****

Anderson didn't know what had happened. One moment he'd been on duty, Keith at his side, the next he was in the water. He pushed to the top quickly--one didn't become an officer in the Navy with poor swimming skills-- and felt his mouth drop open at the burning ruin in front of him. He began swimming away. He stopped once he felt he'd gotten far enough away and turned.

"Keith," he whispered scanning the water frantically. "KEITH!" he yelled. The other man had been standing right next to him.

"KEITH!" he yelled again, desperate.

"ANDERSON!" came the answer, and Anderson let out a harsh, almost sobbing breath. He swam in the direction of the voice and heard splashing. Moments later, in the light of the flames taking their ship, Keith's face appeared before him and they embraced without any thought to others.

"I was so scared. I was so _scared_."

"It's okay, it's okay, I'm okay."

"Are you?" Anderson asked frantically. He recalled the Pacific had at least thirty different types of shark in the water. Where, he didn't know, but Jesus, if anyone was injured...

"Fine. I checked myself thoroughly. What about you?"

"Nothing, some bruises. I checked."

They were both concerned then. They finally released each other and began looking around for survivors. They saw some arms swimming towards a large pool of light and made their way toward them.

"Lieutenant!" came a voice and both Anderson and Keith responded. "We don't know how many made it off, sirs, there are some injured."

Keith and Anderson exchanged looks.

"All right! We need to stay together! Rescue will come and they'll need us as together as possible. Yeoman! Gather the uninjured and swim to search for survivors, get them here, not too far!" Keith ordered. Everyone began to gather rather close and watched as, within minutes of the explosion, the _Indianapolis_ sunk beneath the sea. Leaving them in darkness.

But voices were shouting out and people were gathering. Life jackets and a few rafts appeared. The critically injured were loaded onto the rafts while others hung off the sides. Anderson and Keith put on life jackets. They swam around making sure everything was being taken care of. Finally they came to rest in the middle of everything with each other.

"Some men can't tell if they're bleeding or not," Anderson reported quietly.

"Even a little bit-"

"I know, but Keith the water washes the blood away before they can see it. Now it's too dark to see any changes in sea color."

Keith sighed but acknowledged the truth of those words. Aa ensign reported that the commander had made an S.O.S which had most heaving sighs of relief. They wouldn't have to be out here too long.

*****

"This is taking too long," Keith said quietly to Anderson as dawn broke.

"It's only been six hours," Anderson reassured him. "It might take time."

"They would have sent a plane by now, Andy." He seemed to remember something and his face fell. "We were on radio silence."

Anderson's eyes met his, alarmed.

"Fuck."

"Indeed."

*****

"SHARKS!" came a terrified scream and the men around them began to panic. Below the sea the water churned as sharks came nearer and nearer. Anderson and Keith held on to each other, and they were not the only ones. Groups of sailors were clinging together and praying. They could see, across the flat expanse, lone swimmers--stragglers, thrown too far from them, too weak to swim, pulled under the blue.

And to think, for a minute there Anderson had actually been hungry.

*****

Sailors began dying around them. Not from the sharks, though those merciless animals certainly benefited from the bounty, but from starvation, from thirst, from their wounds.

"Keith," Anderson whispered.

"I know."

"_Keith_."

The other man only held him closer as another sailor lost his grip on the life raft and his life and slipped beneath the ocean.

*****

"A PLANE!" one voice, still strong enough, yelled. Eyes, cracked and dry with salt, looked to the sky. A life raft was floating down to them. Anderson and Keith helped those just on the edge into the raft. They themselves stayed in the water.

Hours later a seaplane churned overhead dropping supplies and rafts. The men around them were crying. Those that were still alive in the life rafts were attended to first. Keith directed everyone to drink the water, but as slowly as possible. If he saw anyone guzzling, he ripped the canteen from their lips. He wouldn't lose men to their salvation.

Still around them, the sharks circled. Men were dragged under, short shouts their last words.

*****

The seaplane had picked up the stragglers that were left and darkness came. Soon they saw the lights of a ship, a spotlight breaking up the darkness, but they couldn't cheer. They weren't even sure how many were dead. A few near Keith and Anderson had died in their life vests and remained afloat.

Only hours later they were all out of the water.

It was incredibly hard to believe.

*****

The rash was terrible, the thirst unquenchable, the pain unbearable. Only the hunger abated in those first few days out of the water. The crews of the ships that had come to their rescue were still searching for survivors. Anderson had tried to tell them there weren't any more. Only shark food.

Keith was nowhere to be found on the ship back to Guam. The Captain, it turned out, had been one of the stragglers in the water and even as he recovered, was being taken to task. Questions were being asked about the attack, about the lack of response, about all the little things that had made this a disaster instead of just one more war-time occurrence. Everyone wanted answers that didn't exist.

Anderson just wanted Keith.

*****

The tropical sunset was an amazing thing to behold and although it meant the coming of night and unendurable nightmares, Anderson was enjoying it. He couldn't find Keith. He thought maybe he'd been picked up by a different ship. That maybe he was in a different infirmary. That maybe he was in a different hotel. No, he just wasn't there.

"Anderson," came a quiet voice from behind him. He turned quickly and let his eyes drink in the sight of Keith, healthy and whole before him. They were both still healing, they had both lost weight, but they were alive and there. Anderson didn't even cry out, didn't whimper, or say Keith's name. He simply threw himself into his lover's arms.

"It's okay. It's okay, we're okay."


End file.
